Hilarious video about energy efficient lightbulb

Courtesy of Nevada Power: "the little dog wins."

Making efficient lighting pretty, too

The compact fluorescent has gotten a lot of flack for buzz, flicker, stark color, and slow warm-up.* So what's getting the lighting industry to take more interest in this energy efficient incandescent replacement?

See the video at Energy Roundup

*Note: these problems have largely been solved.

The battle of the bulbs

The Washington Post has an interesting video story (and print story) on one of the main challenges to the spread of compact fluorescent bulbs in the United States: the "wife test." Energy-savvy husbands purchase efficient CFLs for the home, forgetting to clear the lighting change with their partner or sometimes surreptitiously replacing incandescent bulbs without warning. And the wife is not always pleased.

Despite (or because of?) the occasional marital discord sparked by bulb replacements, the United States clearly lags behind the developed world in adopting more efficient lighting. Japan's lights are 80% CFL, Germany's 50%, and even the UK has 20% of its lights replaced by CFLs. The United States has only switched 6%. This interesting tidbit suggests that female shoppers are less enthused about the bulbs whose history involved humming, flickers, long warm-ups, and steep bulb prices:

In groceries and drugstores, where 70 percent to 90 percent of light bulbs historically have been sold and where women usually have been the ones doing the buying, CFLs have not taken off nearly as fast as they have in home-improvement stores such as Home Depot and Lowe's, where men do much of the shopping.

I'd really like to see a scientific study on whether women are more likely than men to discern the difference in light cast by the two types of bulbs or if women have greater sensitivity to light color and quality. Because with over 100 billion kilowatt-hours (kW-hrs) used for lighting each year (and CFLs using a quarter of an incandescent) that's a lot of potential energy savings.

Europe goes lighting efficient

As I continue to catch up on news I missed while on vacation last week, I found a story on Europe's plan to effectively phase out incandescent light bulbs by 2009. By using an energy efficiency requirement for bulbs, the new laws will not a priori ban the incandescent, but it will quickly go the way of the Dodo without substantial energy improvements. The writer notes that the de facto replacement - the compact fluorescent - contains traces of mercury, a toxic metal.

Two thoughts:

1. It's great that the law focuses on energy efficiency instead of a particular bulb technology. The problem of "government picking winners" is thus avoided.
2. Compact fluorescents are a major improvement over the incandescent, but I think it's a little naive to dismiss the mercury problem. Over its lifetime, a CFL will displace more mercury than it contains, assuming that a significant portion of its electricity comes from coal. However, with a strong push toward renewable and environmentally-friendlier energy coming along, it's silly to assume that's always going to be true. Conclusion: don't hesitate to buy a CFL rather than an incandescent, but don't stop looking for something better.

Government and technology - don't try to pick winners

This excellent post on Slashdot reminded me why letting government pick technology winners is dangerous. GE has just announced a more efficient incandescent light bulb, hoping to reap the benefits of increasing consumer focus on energy efficiency with an accepted technology. The bulb will allegedly approach the efficiency of a compact fluorescent over time.

So, instead of the recent proposals to ban the incandescent light bulb, an energy-conscious governing body could simply ban less efficient bulbs (as measured by lumens produced per watt consumed) or tax bulbs on a per watt basis. This lets the market help filter out the most effective way to meet the energy efficiency goal.

Lesson: let government set the goal and structure the market, not pick the market.

Other examples: renewable fuels mandates instead of ethanol mandates; renewable electricity mandates instead of wind mandates; higher CAFE standards instead of banning Hummers (though I'd be okay with banning those things anyway :-)

Update 2/27/07: Energista picked up the same story and came to the same conclusion - efficiency standards are better than bulb bans.

Another new lightbulb

While not precisely new, as it has seen extensive use in traffic lights, the light-emitting diode (LED) is poised to become economic enough to replace the standard incandescent light bulb. Although still cost-prohibitive in comparison, LEDs even put compact fluorescents (CFLs) to shame as they last 10 times longer than CFLs and 133 times longer than incandescents. However, depending on the application, their efficiency can range from 1-10 times as much as incandescents (LEDs are better at spotlighting than lighting an area). In other words, it's questionable if an overhead fixture would be more efficient with a CFL or an LED. Either way, there's no way you should still be using a regular lightbulb when 90% of its output is heat.